The role of the adrenals in resistance to parasitic infection in birds has been given little attention. This has been due in part to an incomplete understanding of avian adrenal physiology, and to a lack of appropriate methods for measuring changes in adrenal function. Many studies of mammalian species, and of the rat in particular, have employed the depletion of adrenal ascorbic acid as an indicator of response to stress (Long, 1947). Under certain conditions adrenal ascorbic acid depletion has been shown to be closely correlated with adrenocorticotropic hormone levels (Sayers, Sayers and Woodbury, 1948). The mechanism of ascorbic acid depletion and its relationship to the biosynthesis and secretion of adrenal cortical hormones, however, remains to be demonstrated.
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John R. Challey (1960) studied this question.